Haluk Piyes

Haluk Piyes — Biography

Haluk Piyes is an actor, director and screenwriter who works in both Germany and Turkey and is known in Germany as Luk Piyes. He adopted that name so that foreign audiences could remember it easily, and it shaped his identity in German productions. In Turkey he became visible through films such as Bizim Hikaye and Ateş, and in recent years through historical productions.

The first phase of his career was in Germany. Seeing friends drift toward violence, he decided to study law, and alongside it trained in theatre and film, boxed for a while and worked as a trade-fair host. He studied screenwriting and directing for three years at the AFI in Los Angeles and acting at the Actors Studio in New York. He became known in 2000 with Kanak Attack and then played in German films such as Die Klasse von '99 and En garde. The second phase was dominated by Turkish productions: Pars: Kiraz Operasyonu, Mülteci and the boxer in the series Pusat. In Kanımdaki Barut (2009) and Ateş (2016) he combined the work of writer, director and actor, and press reported that he lost thirteen kilos for Ateş.

He took the lead in Bizim Hikaye (2015), which follows a father and son living through the period after the 1980 coup. Later he played Afşin Bey in Malazgirt 1071, Sinaneddin in Mevlânâ Celâleddîn-i Rûmî and Yedder in El Turco. A social counsellor, Piyes gives seminars against violence and substance addiction.